Saturday, August 5, 2017

Internet and a Few Good Nights.

Sorry for the lack of updates, since you last heard from us, we now have the internet out at Kumeu Observatory thanks to Steve Hennerley, we also had a number of good nights last weekend, we didn't have any current Microlensing alerts on, so Jonathan invited Auckland Astronomical society members Shaun Fletcher and Carolle Varughese over to learn the basics of MaxIm DL, Shaun having his own home observatory and being an Astrophotographer picked it up really quickly and Carolle having studied Astronomy and having done a years worth of observations at Mt John Observatory also picked it up quickly, so we probably only need a few more nights of training to get these two up to speed, with no current Microlensing events to follow we do need to start thinking about new projects to tackle.

Another issue that has been discovered with the amount use of the dome is now getting is that the fibreglass sides are starting to really degrade and will require some maintenance, we will be bringing this up at the next society council meeting to hopefully devise a plan of action to repair the dome and perhaps even get the dome cleaned and painted at the same time as it's quite grubby after all these years.